Kanye West, an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, announced he is quitting politics after being ‘used to spread messages I don’t believe in’ and denounced the president over his immigration policy.
The singer made the surprising declaration on Twitter on Tuesday.
‘My eyes are now wide open and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!,’ he wrote.
In an extended Twitter rant, he criticized Trump’s immigration policy, denounced the ‘blexit’ movement, and thanked his family.
West indicated the split came over Trump’s policies on immigration, which had seen migrant children separated from their parents who came to the country illegally and ordering troops to the border to stave off a caravan of people walking to the United States from Central America.
‘I support those who risk their lives to serve and protect us and I support holding people who misuse their power accountable. I believe in love and compassion for people seeking asylum and parents who are fighting to protect their children from violence and war,’ the rapper wrote.
He also denounced the ‘blexit’ movement – black people leaving the Democratic Party – and its conservative founder Candace Owens.
West said even though his name was used he ‘never wanted any association’ and has ‘nothing to do with it.’
‘I introduced Candace to the person who made the logo and they didn’t want their name on it so she used mine. I never wanted any association with Blexit. I have nothing to do with it,’ he tweeted.
Owens has urged Black voters to leave Democrats as part of her ‘blexit’ campaign.
‘Blexit is a Renaissance,’ Owens told Fox News on Monday. ‘Blexit is the black exit from the Democratic Party. It’s the black exit from permanent victimhood, the black exit from the false idea that we are somehow separate from the rest of America.’
Her movement got national attention after she said West helped her design its logo.
‘Kanye saw my original design, and said, ‘I can do it better,’ Owens said. ‘It certainly was. He redesigned the logo with vibrant colors inspired by his trip to Uganda.’
The rapper and designer also debuted a line of shirts endorsing a ‘Black Exit’ from the Democratic Party at the Young Black Leadership Summit in Washington, DC, on Saturday – even as he denounced the movement on Tuesday.
West did not attend the summit although there had been rumors he would be there.
West also thanked his family for their support. He is married Kim Kardashian, who has met with Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner about prison reform.
‘I would like to thank my family, loved ones, and community for supporting my ACTUAL beliefs and my vision for a better world,’ West wrote on Tuesday.
Kardashian’s May meeting at the White House led the president to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson, whom Kardashian had become a prominent supporter of after reading about her case online.
Kardashian visited the White House in September for a second time. She’s not known to have spoken to the president during that trip. She participated in a prison reform panel with Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
West is close with Trump, having first met with him at Trump Tower shortly after Trump won the 2016 presidential election.
He has tweeted his support of him and often wears a red ‘Make America Great Again’ hat.
He also met with the president in the Oval Office earlier this month where he went on an extended rant as he sat across from Trump at the Resolute Desk, where he dropped the F bomb, spoke about his bipolar disorder diagnosis and even shared a warm hug with the president, who concluded that his speech ‘pretty impressive’.
West, who wants to be known as Ye, said he has come to understand that ‘bravery helps you beat this game called life’ and that he was misdiagnosed with a mental health disease when he was really just sleep deprived in a 10-minute speech, followed by nearly 10 minutes of questions, in which he labeled himself a ‘crazy motherf***er’ and called the amendment that ended slavery a ‘trap door’ and said it should be abolished.
West showed up to the meeting wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ ball cap.
‘They tried to scare me to not wear this hat, my own friends, but this hat it gives me, it gives me power,’ West asserted. ‘You know, my dad and my mom separated, so I didn’t have a lot of male energy in my home. And also, I’m married to a family that, you know – not a lot of male energy going on. It’s beautiful though,’ he said, breaking into nervous laughter as he spoke about his wife Kim Kardashian West and her family.
He said the hat is like a Superman cape and said that Trump made him a billionaire.
